Football fans enjoying a World Cup free of the usual bombardment of ads featuring top-flight players, celebrities and reality TV winners urging fans to go on a month-long gambling binge have Guy Parker to thank.
As chief executive of the UK’s advertising watchdog, Parker and his team are responsible for enforcing new regulations introduced just before the tournament in Qatar – a global event that gambling and betting companies traditionally target with a heavy marketing spend to attract bets from fans in the grip of football fever.
The new rules prohibit famous figures with strong appeal to under-18s – from Cristiano Ronaldo and José Mourinho to England players and wider non-sporting celebrities – from appearing in betting and gambling ads in any media.
“It is a big, big change that applies not only to footballers but to other sports people and celebrities,” Parker says. “It is a serious rule change, and dangerous territory for gambling and betting firms now.”
The 52-year-old is something of a lifer at the Advertising Standards Authority – he joined it 30 years ago as an investigations executive and has run the body since 2009. But do not mistake length of tenure for the possibility of a creeping complacency: last year was the busiest in the ASA’s 60-year history, as the number of complaints about ads surged by a quarter to 43,325.
Much of that surge related to Covid-themed ads. Tesco’s “vaccinated Santa” topped the list in 2021, becoming the UK’s second most complained-about ad of all time. Second on the list was Ryanair’s ill-thought-out “Jab & Go!” holiday campaign. But the boom in digital advertising has brought a new challenge in the form of social media stars and platforms such as TikTok.
Over the past year the authority has been waging war against a core of influencers who persist in ignoring warnings and a swath of bans designed to force them to make it clear when they are being paid to promote a product. “Love Islanders in particular,” Parker groans.
“We have seen much better compliance from influencers at the more professional end of the market,” he says. “The class of influencers that are harder to get through to are the celebrities and contestants on reality TV shows, especially former contestants who have become famous but know their fame might not last very long, so want to make money while they can.”
While fame may be fleeting, complaints from the public are not. Last year, those related to influencer posts rose by a fifth and made up almost a quarter of all cases investigated by the ASA in the online sector.
Former Love Islander Molly-Mae Hague has had three ad bans for not following social media marketing rules, and five other former contestants from the show have been part of an ASA “name and shame” campaign to highlight persistent rule-breakers to the public.
“We are fighting fire with fire,” says Parker. “Using digital platforms to shine a spotlight on influencers who are not playing by the rules and drawing attention to people who follow and subscribe to them.”
He says the tactic has seen recalcitrant influencers quickly toeing the line.
It cost the ASA £8.2m to investigate 22,155 cases last year – but then complaining is often said to be a national pastime in Britain. And though ad complaints are his organisation’s raison d’être, Parker would like to hear less from the self-selecting bunch who contact the ASA most regularly, as they do not reflect the overall UK population. His figures show that Scots are the most likely to write in about ads, while residents of Wales and Northern Ireland will proportionately contact the watchdog less.
“Don’t tell me they don’t face the same sort of problem with irresponsible, misleading, harmful or offensive ads. They do, but for whatever reason they don’t complain to the ASA,” says Parker. “It is also maybe not surprising that better-off older people with maybe more time on their hands are more likely to take the time to fill in our online complaints form. We can’t be in thrall to our complaints in-box, as this would mean over-servicing a small proportion of the UK public, and we can’t afford to do that.”
Parker’s campaign against heedless influencers required many months of manual monitoring of 24,000 Instagram posts. With internet advertising having overtaken TV in 2014 to become the most complained-about medium, this time-consuming system was clearly unsustainable. The ASA has over the past year invested heavily in data science and machine-learning algorithms to tackle the ever-expanding task of keeping tabs on the online world even before complaints roll in.
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CV
Age 52
Family Married with three children, and living in north London.
Education University of Kent, Canterbury (BA in politics and international relations) and Watford College (diploma in advertising).
Pay Undisclosed, but mid-market for the boss of a national regulator.
Last holiday A weekend break in Madrid tacked on to a European Advertising Standards Alliance Board meeting.
Best advice he’s been given For work: “Confront the brutal facts”; for understanding the world: “Follow the money”; for mental health: “Don’t worry about what you can’t control”.
Phrase he overuses “Don’t sweat the small stuff” – my wife has banned me from saying this.
How he relaxes Reading, watching television and hiking.
Biggest career mistake “Probably enjoying working at the ASA too much – I’ve been here 30 years!”
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Parker now has his sights set on bringing into line sectors which to date have had a rather “wild west” approach to ad regulation.
Earlier this year, the ASA sent enforcement notices to 50 firms in the cryptocurrency sector warning them that they must clearly explain the risks for potential investors. The watchdog has already slapped bans on a bitcoin firm for urging that it was “time to buy” or miss out, and on football club Arsenal’s campaign to get fans to buy its crypto “tokens”.
“When it comes to crypto advertising, we are the only game in town,” says Parker. And this will be the case at least until the government delivers on plans to change the law so that ads for crypto assets are subject to the same regulation as other financial products.
Another area the ASA is wading into is companies’ claims to being green, net zero or carbon neutral. Sectors it has launched investigations in include: transport, especially claims around hybrid and EV vehicles; food, in particular meat and dairy products; and energy.
While such crackdowns are laudable, how does Parker feel about accusations that the ASA’s policing role risks stifling Britain’s globally recognised and admired advertising culture?
“No, no,” he says. “We love great advertising – if it is responsible.”
